Grange Pavilion pollinator patch
We collaborated with the Community Gateway programme and the residents of Grangetown, Cardiff, to develop a community space with wellbeing and environmentalism at its heart.
Community Gateway is a Cardiff University flagship engagement project launched in 2014 to help make Grangetown an even better place to live and work by brokering university and community partnerships.
Using the principles of co-production, Community Gateway has facilitated over 60 community-university projects, making connections between University staff, students and Grangetown residents to help bring community-led ideas to life.
Space for bees at Grange pavilion
The Community Gateway project has played a central role in the redevelopment of Grange Pavilion, a previously vacant bowls pavilion turned community venue.
The Pavilion will house a bee-friendly pollinator patch in its grounds, where residents and volunteers will cultivate plants favoured by pollinators and those identified as imparting antimicrobial properties to honey.
The Pharmabees team have been instrumental in initiating this exciting new project with wellbeing, biodiversity, and environmentalism at its heart.
As well as the pollinator patch, this vibrant community space will provide affordable space-for-hire, a community-focused café offering employment and training opportunities to local young people, outdoor gardening, growing opportunities, and much-needed public amenities in a popular inner-city park.
Enhancing community and environment
As well as the pollinator patch developed with the Pharmabees team, the co-produced landscape proposals for Grange Pavilion include:
- bee bricks built into the fabric of the building, surface drainage raingardens and ponds
- an outdoor classroom and planters for school and community use
- an orchard
- enhanced biodiversity for improved air, soil, water and noise quality in an industrially polluted landscape
- a green for community activities.
Activities on site will include regular growing and garden maintenance workshops to train local residents in seasonal growing and in how to take care of the grounds and its features.